Communication and collaboration are important to all musicians but, perhaps, especially so for string quartet players. Communication is essential to four individual musicians who, with a look or a nod, must completely understand where the others are heading and arrive at that destination as one. Recognizing the popularity today of social media communication led Cologne, Germany’s Signum Quartet to announce its #quartweet project at Princeton University in 2015. The Signum website invites, “composers of all ages and abilities to tweet us a short quartet of 140 notes or less on Twitter—a #quartweet!” The ensemble members regularly perform submissions at concerts and online. Their CMSOB audience was treated to one in 2017. Maybe they will play another for us this season.

If communication is a centripetal force drawing quartet members and their audiences together, collaboration is a centrifugal force flinging those musicians into enriching contact with other musicians and composers. The Signum Quartet debuted Bruno Mantovani’s String Quartet No. 3 across Europe in the 2016-7 season. It is dedicated to the group, which actively seeks similar cooperative workshops and projects with other contemporary composers and performing synergies with fellow musicians and ensembles.

About CMSOB

The mission of the Chamber Music Society of Bethlehem is to further appreciation of chamber music by presenting concerts to the greater Lehigh Valley (PA) community featuring world-class ensembles.
Contact us:Chamber Music Society of Bethlehem
P. O. Box 4336
Bethlehem, PA 18018-0336
610-435-7611chambermusic@cmsob.org